Connections and Collapse

I know, I know, I'm way behind the times. I happened to be into BookFirst (one of the big bookstores in Tokyo That has English books - and a much bigger selection than the local library where I have been getting most of my "physical" reading material lately) and happened to see Jared Diamond's Collapse for only 2,000 yen, which is pretty much equivalent to the cover price (unlike Kinokuniya where there is a big markup for foreign books). It's one of those books that had been on my list for a year or so, so I picked it up.

After a mosquito-filled evening in the park (to ensure I am not distracted by the computer) I scrapped the content I had been thinking about for my second Environmental Science lecture at the University. (Yes, after my brilliant lecture Friday I was invited back if I had anything else to talk about - mainly though, this is because the students who were supposed to be giving their final presentations on Tuesday weren't in class Friday, and the instructor had nothing prepared so he needed to fill some time.)

Anyway, I didn't know what to talk about, but I like talking so I told him I would try to figure something out. Reading the first chapter of Collapse, about Bitterroot Valley in Montana, I had found my material.

There is really no groundbreaking new information in that first chapter, but Diamond draws a really great picture of the complexity involved in making environmental or "sustainability" decisions. Not only does he give clear and compelling descriptions of some of the unexpected side-effects of logging (a stream running through the deforested area does not have the benefit of shade, causing the temperatures to rise and effecting fish spawning behaviors), legacies of forest-fire prevention strategies a century ago (and how they skew people's view of what "natural" is), mining, invasive species, agricultural practices on soil quality, social conditions leading the development of those practices, and climate change on water for irrigation, but he also draws the societal connections - he develops an easy to follow story about how these things effect the people living in the area, and some social and economic factors involved in the decisions made regarding the environment. What's even better, he presents his story from various view-points - making the developers', miners' and loggers' view-points as compelling and human as the family farmers' and week-end environmentalists' viewpoints.

In very a very short time, he presents a clear image of the complex web of social and ecological interactions that influence decision making with regards to environmental policy without drawing any conclusions as to what is "right" or "wrong". This is something I am always longing for - to get a clear, coolheaded, unbiased insight into "the other guy's" reasons - but can rarely find in our current polarized society where we are inundated with misinformation and spin from both sides.

Granted, this is just a single chapter that can hardly be thought of as a "complete" view of such a complex socio-ecnomic-ecological system, but If I could somehow adapt this forest chapter into a lecture even a tenth as brilliant as he writes about it, it could very well be the most important thing the students learn in this particular class.

Or so I, as the would-be brilliant lecturer, would like to think.